


blood black with sins

by goldtracing



Series: the future is a fickle thing, so is the past [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Corruption Arc, Deception, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Gen, Imperial Leia Organa, Politics, Poor Life Choices, Slow Burn, The Force, grey morality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:49:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25066432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldtracing/pseuds/goldtracing
Summary: Bail is completely aghast by his daughter’s betrayal to all their ideals. That doesn’t change that Leia has her reasons and something larger than life keeps encouraging her.
Relationships: Bail Organa & Leia Organa, Leia Organa & Darth Vader, Leia Organa & Wilhuff Tarkin
Series: the future is a fickle thing, so is the past [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815403
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	1. Foreword

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I’ve committed the ultimate heresy by making Leia an Imperial, and not a Sith. Let’s just say that this a thought experiment, because personalities are malleable, and people can do the worst of things despite having the best intensions at heart.  
> This is also a sort of challenge for myself. In every Star Wars story, you’ll lose count of how many times “the Force” is mentioned. Here I did my best to never mention that word and see how it influenced the plot. This is for the first chapter at least

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some important things before reading this work!

This is an idea that has been floating around my head for some time and I’ve finally decided to dare take the step to realise it. This work actually started as just a one-shot, however, the temptation to transform it into a fully fledged story spanning multiple chapters was too good to pass up.

Before you read, read this through and keep this in mind because I will only be saying this once. When it comes to such matters, I don’t like to repeat myself.

The entirety of this work of fiction is a thought experiment and while I may write characters a certain way that doesn’t mean I share their view. Just like G.R.R Martin isn’t sexist just because Joffrey is demeaning and cruel towards women.

Besides, this is largely a thought experiment, because people are very malleable and commit the worst crimes in the name of compassion and justice, or better said, what they perceive as such. People always have motivations for doing horrible things, be it entitlement, a sense of duty, their moral code or in order to achieve a higher goal.

Nobody is immune to this, even if they are the best person imaginable, because firstly right and wrong are relative and justice is subjective. There is no formula for ultimate good and ultimate evil, and that is one of the themes here.

Another theme here is how people rationalise their misdeeds, as well as how power affects a person.

Anyway, I do hope you enjoy this read.

-the author


	2. Chapter 2

Organa paled – it was caused by dizzying fear and the sort of dread that bloomed from betrayal. Tarkin smiled – it was vindictive and overflowing with cruel satisfaction. Events had taken an unexpected turn. Whether it was for the best or the worst … depended.

 _“What greater agony can there be for you, Organa”,_ the Grand Moff mused as he studied the Prince Consort, _“than to have your own child cast away all your teachings?”_

In all his sadism it was delightful for Tarkin to see one of his problems solve itself. If anything, it was gratifying to see the Alderaani’s distress. Yes, the prince was a politician that was skilled in veiling his emotions, but the Moff was a military man that smell fear like an Umbaran shadow wolf.

Who knew, maybe the princess would further take matters in her own hands and take care of her treasonous parents.

As he redirected his focus on Leia, his believes were reaffirmed.

The way she idly chatted with those she once considered despicable and laughed semi-authentically at their tasteless jokes, whereas a few weeks prior any conversation had been stiff with formality and superficial.

“Oh, please Senator. You know that since the Core Worlds are far more important than the Outer Rim that sending relief there is counterproductive. The Republic with it’s lax grasp on reality tried to help them and can you see the results of their hard labour? No, a system needs to earn their place in the Empire”, he heard the youth exclaim, that clear voice cutting through the low murmur of the crowd.

Such fervour for imperial ideas was the sweetest melody to the military man’s ears – he agreed contently with the statement. How terribly nice it was to be of the same opinion – especially if it was at the expense of others.

When would the fair maiden finally dirty her hands? She certainly had the potential to successfully dabble into the more sinister machinations of the Empire, no doubt ruthlessness and cold-blooded ambition suited her well. Additionally, it would be theatrical to watch his adversary deteriorate further as his daughter distanced herself from him.

It would be gradual and delicious to watch, because Leia Organa was of white-hot fire and a stubbornness that was as painfully familiar to her adoptive father as it was to Wilhuff Tarkin. Her razor-sharp wit was befitting of a queen and her audacity inspired others, she could undoubtedly be an important asset to him.

He’d have to attend to her later. Although she was a charming and very promising little thing, he had different priorities to attend to.

As for the Prince Consort everything was racing downhill to absolute ruin. He had always thought that he had taught his little girl well how to discern right from wrong. Over the course of years, he had made her astute to the atrocities of the Empire. Therefore, it was all the more shattering that she endorsed such evils.

Leia had been so full of righteousness as a child, a glinting new hope of rebellion that cried injustice in face of the crimes of the Sith. Now it fraternized with tyranny.

Where had that valiant spirit disappeared to? What had caused Leia to cast her morals away?

There she stood amidst a lavish gala and spread the nefarious ideas the regime promoted whereas once she would have fled by now, muttering profanities under her breath and nauseated by the toxic ideas that clogged the air like smog.

Luckily, Bail had decided to stay silent about the Rebellion, but how long would it be until his daughter found out about that secret. There was only so much you could hide from family, and additionally, Leia was far to keen to remain ignorant for long.

Ever since her change of heart, she’d become more independent, more insistent about having her way and getting things on her own. The enemy in his house, she was the weak point, despite her recent detachment. Somehow, his prodigy had evolved to become the faulty cog in his plans for a better and brighter future.

Yet he still loved her – he was her Papa and she was his little princess even if she wasn’t of his blood and flesh and it broke the Senator’s heart to see the metamorphosis his child was undergoing.

“She is too much like Anakin. I had hoped that she’d have enough of Padme in her so that she wouldn’t unwittingly follow in her sire’s footsteps but alas! We’ve done our best, and it evidently wasn’t enough. I’m not sure myself how and why she so suddenly reinvented her whole moral playground.

“Will she even listen to us if we would try to guide her back to the right path? My dear, you now as well as I how somebody so entrenched in their believes can’t be swayed by the truth. What should we do?”, he had questioned in an anxious discussion with his wife as he’d paced up and down their shared bedroom. Breha had had barely concealed worry as she had watched her husband methodically wear the carpet through.

“Remember, that is still Padme’s daughter and first and foremost she an individual who is aware that her choices are her own to make and she must carry the responsibility for the consequences”, she had remained him. Then, standing up from her seat by the vanity, she had interrupted his uneasy steps and cupped his face, her thumb gently stroking his bearded cheek.

“Don’t despair, all is not lost. Leia is just misguided. You and I know that she is too insightful and selfless to fall into such an ideology”, she had soothed him.

For the love of the galaxy, he prayed that she was right.

It didn’t ease the tragedy that played out in front of him. For a split second, Leia caught his stare, brown eyes wide and inquisitive in one moment, and then narrowed and suspicious in next. In everyway it was terrible to suffer such scrutiny from a loved one.

Perhaps, (and hopefully) an urgent matter would arise that would divert her attention so that she wouldn’t investigate into the rumour that the Alderaan royal family were Rebel sympathizers. When push came to shove and the naked truth lay undiluted before her, would Leia love her parents enough to not sell them out?

Bail sincerely pleaded to all the gods he knew that his charge wouldn’t be as ruthless as to denounce them.

The circle was closing and a future with a restored Republic was far off. The fashion in which Tarkin’s stare burned holes in the back off his skull indicated the obstacles that obscured his path – the wild megalomania, the manner she laughed and jested in unspeakable company – and that there were always factors beyond his control. Nothing really did go according to meticulous plans in the end.

However, as it tended to be, the truth wasn’t apparent to either party and it was best that way, or it was for the worst. It certainly rearranged the whole game and it was safer that the two men didn’t know they had gotten the shorter end of the stick. But then again, could they be blamed for their ignorance and lack of foresight?

Leia could appear so innocent in her youth, swathed in an abundance of white cloth and with a smile decorating her angelic visage. Even though she praised oppression with every other word she was still engulfed by an aura of vernal naivety.

“The Empire just has its best interests in maintaining the natural hierarchy. The weak are the weak and the strong are the strong, placing them anywhere else than in their destined places would be cruelty. Those with the skills and the talent raise up in the ranks while those that are lacking get left behind”, she sweetly elaborated to a diplomate who hung at her very lips. Really, the princess was wise beyond her years.

It was enough to trick anyone.

“In a way, it is a sentient’s own fault if they don’t advance when given the opportunity – they have a will of their own and are responsible for their own choices. A government can only be blamed so much when a person is foolish enough to ruin their own life”, she carried on. The worst part of it, was that it was the truth, only twisted and framed to suit a dubious agenda.

What a stroke of luck that most didn’t dare look deeper than the superficial. Many that knew the woman closer were convinced that she’d either been tricked or brainwashed into being a marionette for the Emperor.

An incorrect assumption, but Leia didn’t refute the rumours – they disguised her own machinations. Instead of being controlled, she was the one entangling people in a web that she cautiously crafted, an ambitious mistress with a steel backbone. They were all fair game to her, pieces on a derjack table to manipulate to her liking.

For the greater good.

“Isn’t it funny, that the common folk blame everybody but themselves for their misfortunes. So narrow-minded. That is why democracy fails, because the masses can’t see the bigger picture and when they do, they misinterpret it. A strong and kind hand is needed to guide them. And when they step out of line, then a whip”, she commented on the remark on a fellow delegate of how she was so right on the stupidity of the simple people. If they gobbled up her preachings so eagerly, why not serve them seconds? It solely was a question of what cards to play and which words to dish out.

“The people of your system have done well to recognize this Senator Tarzel, no wonder them are so prosperous. I guess that is all due to you”, she praised a human politician.

An oily smile was what she reaped, along with velvet words: “Thank you. You really flatter me Organa, I can only sing praises about your work for Alderaan and the Empire.”

They all came to her weary at first but nonetheless curious. They sought to confirm or deny what they had heard. After being around her for some time, they’d drop their guard. A mistake on their behalf.

“Miss Organa here is really a prodigy amongst politicians and so well-intentioned too. With your selfishness you’ll no doubt bring law and order through words alone. That silver tongue of yours certain will make your dreams come true”, the Ryloth Senator added, cheeks discoloured due to intoxicated. In his hand, he held a glass of Pantoran fire gin and the liquid threatened to spill due to how he has rocking back and forth.

Leia smiled confidently, a great krayt surrounded by lesser lizards and said: “Please, my friend. Call me Leia.”

Not that she would willingly correct them, she couldn’t let anybody have an advantage over her.

“It is touching that you consider us close”, an older woman purred. “A young thing like you can really use a helping hand that has more experience.” Such a poor creature, she had become senile with advancing age and decadent with the spoils of war.

When it had all began, she couldn’t pinpoint. Possibly it had always been there, slumbering in her essence, but what counted was that she had it.

Once her mind had always been so loud and filled with doubts and worries and fears, but she had learned to swiftly silence them. However, she hadn’t found nothing as she had expected – it had caused the whispers that inhabited her mind to grow loud, finally free from their confines.

That ageless voice had murmured to her, urged her on and had drawn her deeper into her own self. Again, she had been surprised yet again, because instead of uncovering a tranquil void, she’d landed in a place akin to a churning sea in a typhon and even that comparison paled in contrast to the reality of it.

The whispers had rose into a deafening howl and bands of fire had crisscrossed an ethereal scene. So, it was anger that she’d first encountered when she’d tapped into that connection and like a nosy child, she had touched the ribbons of flame mentally, not that she had been aware of that at the time. 

Passion had enveloped her, fanning the focused ambition that she had always possessed. Frightened as she had been at first, she had learned to listen to that eldritch creation and cherish its advice – they tended to always be right.

With that heightened awareness of the world around her revealed to her that the Bith Senator was more than met the eye. Resentment was hidden under a polite smile and the confusion that her presence and words evoked radiated off of him in waves.

Sharing her own superficial smile, she suggested: “You might just as well turn to gathering resources from the Arknis Sector, Senator Zilat. I heard of the famine that has struck your system – you have my sympathy.

“However, you won’t want to leave the matter unattended as you have until now. If people are neither entertained nor fed, then they tend to rebel. And wouldn’t it look bad on your record if there were an insurgence?”

Voice syrupy and eyes wide, it was unbelievable that she’d uttered such a thing. _“Fools”_ , the whispers sniggered their unembodied voice, evidently pleased.

Zilat’s self-reprimanding was almost tangible to Leia, he was angry at himself for not coming up with the solution and he was angry at her for publicly show-casing his mistakes. Besides that, the loathing that bloomed from envy was palpable.

“Thank you, honourable Princess. You are truly wise beyond your years”, he offered his gratitude along with a curt bow before retreating from the circle of people vying for her attention. As per usual in political area, his words had been shallow.

Leia could very nearly taste the emotions ebbing in the hall and when she closed her eyes, she could see them swirling around individual presences in an array of colours that no words could ever fully describe, only partially. For a moment, the woman admired the orange of scorn clashing with silver admiration, all of it rimmed with greening jealously, all of it twirling around the retreating figure.

That was the price of power, to be simultaneously be loved and hated. People were always attracted to greatness despite how, in all their hypocrisy, they rebelled, they feared and vied to be the ones worshiped. How disgusting, they never realised that great doesn’t always mean good.

Power – it was what that larger than life entity told she needed. Because she deserved it, because she was the only one that could wield it wisely, because she had a clear-cut vision of a better and brighter future. It urged her to seize what was rightfully hers, her birth right by her heritage and curled around her with the affection of a well-meaning grandparent.

If they only knew that she was following the guidance of something far older and far more profound than all of them combined. How could she even explain to them that they were lesser being in the game of something omnipotent, something sat deep in her bones and was so inexorably that it was a part of her basest identity? It had always been there, she just had had to overcome the hurdles to become acquainted with it.

Now it was as familiar as the steady thrum of her heart.

She took the briefest of moments to glance around the room and her focus narrowed on an all to familiar black juggernaut. Dark red lenses were directed with hyper-concentration at her as if he was peeling back her shields and guises like the skin of an overripe plum.

As vividly she perceived the world with the entities help, sometimes it would only tell her so much, it let her acutely feel the metaphysical touch brush over her mind. Almost as if he sought to find something only familiar to him. Lord Vader’s interest was suffocating.

Breathing deeply, she anchored her disguises even more firmly in place.

Still, despite its skewed will, it crooned secrets of the past in her ears:

_“See young one, there were reasons why the Republic fell. An Order blinded by dogma, a system polluted by corruption. People are must selfish when they ought to be selfless.”_

Of the present:

_“And they remain either narrow-minded, or drown in their hubris. A prince that is nostalgic for a shattered dream and wishes to restore it at all costs. A prodigy fallen from grace that is drown in his own self-pity. And a croon intoxicated on power to the point he has lost touch with reality. The list goes on and on.”_

And of the future:

_“Such contradictions. An Alderaani royal that is building a rebellion and still he calls himself a pacifist! They will fail! Whether it be tomorrow or in a century that their flimsy hopes crumble to dust, their work will be for nought. The future lies in the Empire.”_

The sickly-sweet temptation arose to seize it all for herself arose and she gladly submerged in it – the bodyless advisor was always right:

_“Look at those insufferable fools. Why let them stand in the way when you know so much better?”_

So, she obeyed, and the entity rallied around her, feeding of her desires and aspirations. Only she could create order in a galaxy steeped in turmoil – everybody else was either to short-sighted or lacked the vision for such prosperity all together.

Once more, she dared a look at the accursed man. Tarkin had engaged Vader in a terse conversation. Now was the opportunity.

“And now if the ladies and gentlemen would excuse me, I’ll retire for the night”, she politely excused herself wading through a crowd that attempted to keep her by them. Of course, they all wanted the crumbs of something divine in the making.

She climbed in the private speeder awaiting and sunk in the cushions as the vehicle sped through the upper levels of Coruscant. Leaning over, she glanced out of her window to take in the buzz that filled the yawning abyss between the skyhook and plummeted down to the surface of the planet.

We all have sins buried deep, some are just better at hiding that fact than others. One day her father would be proud of her; and probably anger for hiding her plans from him. But did he really deserve the right to be privy to them anyway?

He kept things from her; she could feel the wall where he kept his secrecies imprisoned – at the moment, she respected his privacy.

The question was how long that would last.

Leia stepped out when they arrived at their destination and entered the residence of the Organa family. Wandering through the soulless apartment, she settled down on a couch in front of a wide window that allowed her to marvel the cityscape.

For what seemed like an eternity she sat there in the darkness of the apartment with only the city-light as illumination as she enjoyed solitude.

Then, a high chime interrupted her hazy musings and reflexively she stretched out her presence to determine who was haunting her at this ungodly hour. Inwardly she groaned, he must have followed her from the party, she vivid anticipation and curiosity told her all she needed to know.

Nevertheless, she pulled herself up and opened the door. Tarkin was standing on the other side, an unusually opened expression of interest on his aged face.

**Author's Note:**

> And before you come at me, keep in mind that the opinions of the characters are not my own.  
> Either way, before you leave, leave a comment!


End file.
